4 Steps to Communicate a Message
Clarity in delivering a message is important. Health education and promotion strategies can be challenging to communicate to others. To successfully communicate your message, follow these steps:
Step 1:
Identify key audiences.
You may have different key messages for specific groups of people. What do you want the audience to do, think, or believe?
Step 2:
Develop a message. The message should be simple, clear, compelling and include:
The problem?
Example: The poor health and wellness in the community due to tobacco use.
The solution?
Example: Hiring health education specialists in schools, colleges/universities, health departments, community organizations, health facilities, worksites, and insurance companies to implement evidence-based tobacco cessation programs.
The facts or stories to get the attention of those who can make the solution happen?
Possible key messages topics include:
- Increasing awareness of the various roles health education specialists play in improving consumer health and wellness.
- Providing support and resources for health education specialists.
- Encouraging collaboration – government agencies, community-based organizations, schools, and businesses, whose services and decisions affect health education specialists’ provisions on consumer health and wellness.
Step 3:
Get the facts
Research facts that support key message(s). Support the message with local facts and statistics.
Step 4:
Spread the message.
- Build a media list – include local and regional radio, television, print, key health journalists and bloggers that cover these or similar issues.
- Write and send a news release or story pitch.
- Increase online presence on social media, listen, engage and follow groups with related messages.
• Community Tool Box (from the University of Kansas) – http://ctb.ku.edu/
• W.K. Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Toolkit – https://www.wkkf.org/resource-directory/resource/2010/w-k-kellogg-foundation-evaluation-handbook